Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by forrestthewoods 2618 days ago
Unpopular Opinion: Maybe it would be a good if API’s were subject to copyright protection.
4 comments
ThrowawayR2 2618 days ago
If APIs were subject to copyright protection, Linux would probably never have happened. All the commercial UNIXes were licensed descendants of the original Bell Labs UNIX code base; Linux was a unlicensed re-implementation of UNIX by Linus.

[EDIT] The same goes for WINE and the various Windows APIs.

link
int_19h 2618 days ago
Do you want to live in a world with less interoperability all around?
link
tobylane 2618 days ago
Wasn’t that part of why Oracle v Google was disliked?
link
forrestthewoods 2618 days ago
Yes. That’s why it’s an unpopular opinion! But I’m still not sure it’s a wrong one.
link
detaro 2618 days ago
Wouldn't that likely lead to all kinds of legal trouble about "your API for the same problem is to similar to ours"?

Is it generally good to forbid making compatible implementations of APIs?

link